Any English-language Chinese cookbooks that routinely include MSG?

[Shalmanese]

I'm sick of even purportedly "authentic" Chinese cookbooks engaging in a culinary whitewashing by completely omitting MSG from their recipes. It reinforces the stereotype that MSG is dangerous, unhealthy or a crutch for low quality cooking. More importantly, it causes dishes you've tasted from authentic Chinese eateries impossible to replicate. By omitting MSG from the culinary lexicon, there's no way to teach how to use it properly, how to diagnose improper use, where it's regarded as essential and where it's regarded as optional.

Hunting through my stack of Chinese cookbooks, I find:

Barbara Tropp - Modern Art of Chinese Cooking: Says she doesn't use it, doesn't include it in any of the recipes.

Irene Kuo - Key to Chinese Cooking: Finds it "distasteful", doesn't use it.

Fuchsia Dunlop - Assorted: Admits that most Chinese cooks use it but avoids using it as she finds it "at best unnecessary and at worst, a cheat"

Ken Hom - Taste of China: Mentions it negatively 3 times, no recipes include it.

Kenneth Lo - Chinese Regional Cooking: No mention of it, not included in any recipe I could find.

Robert Delfs - Good Food of Szechwan: No mention of it, not included in any recipe I could find.

Ellen Schrecker - Mrs Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook: Is actually honest and admits MSG tastes good. Justifies not including it by saying it's a restaurant technique, not a home cook one.

Pei Mei - Chinese Cookbook Volume I: No mention of it, not included in any recipe I could find.

So there you go. I consider myself to have a pretty deep bench of Chinese cookbooks and I couldn't find a single one that includes MSG in a single recipe. Oddly enough, my 1961 copy of the New York Times cookbook includes 9 recipes with MSG, not all of them Asian. It's not even that I use MSG that often or disagree with most people that it can be a crutch. It's just that I find the complete elimination of it from Chinese culinary history disappointing.

[liuzhou]

 

 It's just that I find the complete elimination of it from Chinese culinary history disappointing.

 

From your list it seems MSG is being eliminated from English language versions of the history. It has certainly not been eliminated from Chinese culinary history in China.

 

 

Justifies not including it by saying it's a restaurant technique, not a home cook one.

 

Nonsense. Every home cook I know in China (and I know a lot) uses it, It is available in every supermarket and corner shop. Right next to the salt, usually.

 

The Chinese language cookbooks I mentioned in this thread all use MSG.

 

Perhaps, some English language cookbooks don't include it on grounds of limited availability.

Edited January 14, 2015 by liuzhou (log)

[Shalmanese]

From your list it seems MSG is being eliminated from English language versions of the history. It has certainly not been eliminated from Chinese culinary history in China.

Yes, I meant the English account of Chinese culinary history is inaccurate because of this.

 

Nonsense. Every home cook I know in China (and I know a lot) uses it, It is available in every supermarket and corner shop. Right next to the salt, usually.

The book was published in 1976 when MSG was still a fairly recent invention. Perhaps that's why? I don't know what Chinese cooking was like then. Still, it doesn't justify the more modern books on the list omitting it.

Perhaps, some English language cookbooks don't include it on grounds of limited availability.

Doubtful, MSG powder is widely available in the west, it's no rarer than say, shaoxing wine or doubanjiang.

[Martin Fisher]

Yup, it's in every grocery store and "dollar" store in this area ......available by the pound (or two) at Sam's Club and the like.

[cakewalk]

Pure conjecture here, but I'd say it probably has a lot to do with sales. English-speaking Westerners, for the most part, have been fairly well convinced that MSG is "bad." The authors (and publishers) want to sell those books to English-speaking Westerners. So including MSG in the recipes would likely reduce book sales. I have Gloria Bley Miller's "Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook" (I don't use it a lot, but I like to read it at times) and she says, in part, "There are two schools of thought on its value for home cooking: one that it heightens flavor, the other that it's not necessary when food is of good quality and well-prepared." I can't find it in a recipe in the book but I'm assuming it's there because she includes MSG in her glossary and her list of "Ingredients Used in Chinese Cooking."

[Martin Fisher]

"There are two schools of thought on its value for home cooking: one that it heightens flavor, the other that it's not necessary when food is of good quality and well-prepared."

 

That could also be said for salt.

[Deryn]

What prevents someone from making a recipe, tasting it, deciding if it needs a bit more 'depth'/umami and adding a small pinch of MSG to get it (even if that is not part of the original recipe)?

Edited January 14, 2015 by Deryn (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Yes, I meant the English account of Chinese culinary history is inaccurate because of this.

 

The book was published in 1976 when MSG was still a fairly recent invention. Perhaps that's why? I don't know what Chinese cooking was like then. Still, it doesn't justify the more modern books on the list omitting it.

Doubtful, MSG powder is widely available in the west, it's no rarer than say, shaoxing wine or doubanjiang.

 

Balderdash.  MSG was readily available in the US in the 1960's and 1970's.  And was more popular then than (thankfully) it is now.  Even I used it to great excess.

 

In the 1960's I spent some time living in a house with four or five other college students.  Two of us were responsible for the cooking duties:  myself and a Chinese student (eg. someone who had emigrated from China).  Only one of us used MSG.

[liuzhou]

Indeed MSG was first isolated (not 'invented')  in 1908. I wouldn't call that 'recent' in terms of 1976.

 

However, it remains hard to find in many places in the west. It's fine in larger cities in the UK, especially those with significant East Asian populations, but I can assure you it is not easy to find in smaller towns. I'm guess it is the same in the USA. When I was living in London I sent regular batches of Chinese ingredients to my sister in Scotland. 

 

Of course, that was before on-line shopping (on-line anything - when I was a kid on-line meant hanging up your washing to dry!)

[Smithy]

I'm reasonably certain that MSG is the principal constituent of Accent Flavor Enhancer, which is quite common in USA grocery stores. I'll have to check the next time I'm looking at a shaker of the stuff. I remember when my mother first discovered it in the 1960's - it was quite the rage back then. (Liuzhou, you forgot the other meaning of "on-line" back then: it meant Dad was coming home with fish. :-D)

[liuzhou]

I'm reasonably certain that MSG is the principal constituent of Accent Flavor Enhancer, which is quite common in USA grocery stores. I'll have to check the next time I'm looking at a shaker of the stuff. I remember when my mother first discovered it in the 1960's - it was quite the rage back then. (Liuzhou, you forgot the other meaning of "on-line" back then: it meant Dad was coming home with fish. :-D)

 

Yes, I think Accent is mainly, if not entirely MSG. 

Yes, the fish idea crossed my mind, but my Dad was never a fisherman. 

[djyee100]

I don't think that MSG was deliberately "whitewashed" from culinary history. It's become unpopular so it's not found in readily available cookbook editions. Most people aren't interested in culinary history when they buy cookbooks. They want something tasty to cook. Even if the book originally contained MSG in recipes, I bet the MSG was omitted in later editions. As for the recipes being authentic--or not--we've had many discussions on EGullet about "authenticity." It's like beauty in the eye of the beholder.

 

For finding your MSG recipes--

 

MSG appears in recipes in The Chinese Cookbook by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee (1972). Googlebooks preview here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=eiw-EnIm0g4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=chinese+cookbook+claiborne+lee&hl=en&sa=X&ei=J-S1VN-hHIqBygSAtoFg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=chinese%20cookbook%20claiborne%20lee&f=false

 

MSG is also used in The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking by Grace Zia Chu (1969). (The foreword was written by Craig Claiborne--I see a pattern here.) I own this book, though I can't dig it out right now. It's in a box. The food reminds me of the Chinese restaurant food of my childhood (1960s, 1970s), although I don't use MSG and neither did my parents for their home cooking.

 

I surmise that MSG started disappearing from American cookbooks in the 1970s. If you're serious about this line of research, you can go to a used book site like abebooks.com or alibris.com and do a search for keyword "chinese cookbook" with advanced search option of publishing date before 1970 or thereabouts. Oldies and maybe goodies will show up in the search. (For advanced search, click "more search options" in abebooks.com search box. Click the red magnifying glass icon on the alibris.com search box.)

 

If you don't want to buy the books, then you may find them in the SF public library catalog, including the Link+ system. Interlibrary loan through Link+ is free via the SF public library.

[Werdna]

I just ordered the Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee based on the recipe excerpts in the link above.   I use MSG often when cooking, my rule of thumb is usually 1/4 to 1/2 as much MSG as salt, and I add it when I don't feel the recipe gets enough of that flavor from other ingredients (don't want to add it to miso soup, but a little in hamburgers along with salt and pepper is a regular thing for me).

[rlibkind]

The Claiborne-Lee cookbook is a keeper. I got mine when it came out in paper, still use it, tho it's falling apart.

[helenjp]

I wonder....when I first visited Japan around 1980, MSG was a normal kitchen condiment, but that hasn't been true here for a long time. Of course, it's in instant foods and seasoning mixes, but the bottle of MSG lined up beside the salt and soy sauce(s) has gone from kitchens. You can buy it, but not everywhere, and I haven't seen it listed in a recipe for decades, perhaps. Wouldn't be surprised if it were no longer as common in China either.

[liuzhou]

 

Wouldn't be surprised if it were no longer as common in China either.

 

As I've said before, in China, it is still in every supermarket and corner shop.

Edited January 23, 2015 by liuzhou (log)

[Naftal]

Hello- This is the best thing I have seen on MSG:

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/johnmahoney/the-notorious-msgs-unlikely-formula-for-success#.nigXgamAL

[liuzhou]

Here is Harold McGee on MSG

[Shel_B]

I'm reasonably certain that MSG is the principal constituent of Accent Flavor Enhancer, which is quite common in USA grocery stores. I'll have to check the next time I'm looking at a shaker of the stuff. I remember when my mother first discovered it in the 1960's - it was quite the rage back then. (Liuzhou, you forgot the other meaning of "on-line" back then: it meant Dad was coming home with fish. :-D)

 

You are correct - Accent, which has been around almost forever, and is found on supermarket shelves everywhere.

 

While many people eschew the product, and MSG in general, for health reasons, believing it contains excessive amounts of sodium, it actually contains less sodium than salt.